An auxiliary devices mountable to vehicles often have their own auxiliary lighting system. For example, one such auxiliary device is a snowplow. A snowplow is typically mounted to the front of a vehicle.
Unfortunately, due to the overall size of the snowplow, the snowplow may obstruct the headlights of the vehicle. Obstruction of the headlights of the vehicle can prevent adequate light from illuminating the ground in front of the vehicle for the operator to properly see what is in front of the vehicle. Obstruction of the headlights can prevent oncoming vehicles that are traveling toward the vehicle with the snowplow from properly seeing the vehicle or the snowplow. Obstruction of the headlights can also result in the light produced from the vehicle headlights to reflect back at the operator of the vehicle making it more difficult for the operator of the vehicle to drive the vehicle. Thus, the auxiliary device will typically include its own auxiliary lighting system such that the issues associated with obstructing the vehicle headlights is mitigated.
While the auxiliary lighting system can solve or mitigate the obstruction issues, it creates a new source of problems. More particularly, the lights of the auxiliary lighting system need to be able to be controlled by the operator of the vehicle. Attempts have been made to create wiring harnesses that directly connect into the vehicle lighting system such that the power is directed to the vehicle lights, e.g. the vehicle headlights or vehicle marker lights, is directly sent to the auxiliary lighting system lights, e.g. auxiliary headlights or auxiliary marker lights. These wiring harnesses may be connected into connectors provided in the vehicle lighting system or may be directly spliced into the vehicle lighting system.
Unfortunately, as vehicles have become more sophisticated, directly connecting into the vehicle lighting system in this manner has caused other problems. More particularly, many vehicle computers will monitor the state of the vehicle lights to determine whether or not they are properly operating. Unfortunately, when the auxiliary lighting system connects into the vehicle lighting system, many vehicle computers can sense a change in the vehicle lighting system and create a fault or error.
Another issue can simply be the difficulty in accessing the various wires and connectors of the vehicle lighting system to properly connect into the vehicle lighting system in a time efficient manner.
One attempt to overcome this problem is illustrated in U.S. Pat. No. 9,751,452 entitled Method and Apparatus for Installing and Operating an Auxiliary Lighting System Using a Vehicle Light Plug. This system attempts to get around the issue identified above by using the trailer plug designed to send power to and to control marker and turn signal lights on a trailer being towed by the vehicle. Here, the vehicle is expecting a particular load on that set of wiring such that it would not identify connection to that plug as an error or fault in the system.
As vehicles have become even more sophisticated, many vehicles are now including rear backup cameras as well as rear backup sensors for assisting an operator in driving the vehicle in reverse. Unfortunately, some vehicles will deactivate those features when it is believed that a trailer (or other auxiliary device) is attached to the rear of the vehicle. Some vehicles make this determination by sensing that the vehicle trailer plug is connected to an auxiliary device. Thus, the concept of the '452 patent has its problems as well as it will, in some vehicles, deactivate the rear backup cameras and/or rear backup sensors unnecessarily.
A further problem with this system is that typically vehicles only have these trailer plug, or similar plugs, at the rear of the vehicle. This requires a very long wiring harness to extend from the rear of the vehicle to the front of the vehicle. Further, the plug is at the rear of the vehicle rather than at the front of the vehicle in the engine compartment exposing the connection to potential damage.
A final problem related to this system is that control of the auxiliary headlights of the auxiliary lighting system between bright and dim settings requires use of an auxiliary switch positioned within the cab of the vehicle.
The present invention is directed at improvements over the current state of the art. Embodiments may overcome one or more of the problems outlined above.